It’s not cheap keeping animals, but you don’t want to cut corners that could impact their welfare. You may also want to make life easier and more efficient for yourself and for your horses, but are unsure of whether you can actually save money with something like a horse drinker or whether it would be an expense that doesn’t end up paying for itself.

In truth, you can save quite a bit of money by having a horse drinker installed. Here, we’ll go into the various factors involved with costs and horse drinkers so that you can get an idea of how having one would compare to not having one in regard to your finances. 

Electricity

Here at Bar Bar A, we provide non-electric automatic horse waterers. You’ve probably heard all about how electricity and water don’t mix, and we don’t think that electricity and your horse’s waterer should either. With energy costs on the rise, you want to save energy wherever you can. Your horse’s waterer is the ideal place to do this, since you don’t want electricity involved in your horse’s water anyway. 

Since our automatic horse drinkers connect right to your water line, this saves you money on your electrical bills, due to the fact that they don’t need electricity to operate. Rather, when your horse is thirsty, they just press on the paddle, the water comes up, and then when they’re done drinking, it drains back down. 

Water Costs

You waste a lot of water and money when you opt for water buckets and throughs instead of a horse drinker. Standing water can become contaminated with dirt, feces, mosquito eggs, dead rodents, algae, and more. This leads to needing to dump out all the old, dirty water, and replace it with fresh, clean water. This results in gallons upon gallons of water wasted, which is quite costly. 

As previously mentioned, the Bar Bar A horse drinker connects right to your water line. This means that when your horse wants to drink, all they need to do is press on the paddle, and water will come up from your water line. When they’ve had their fill, the water will drain back down. This leads to no wasted water, and ergo, saves you time, effort, and money.

Vet Bills

Horses generally avoid water that they’re suspicious of, but if your horse were to drink contaminated water from their throughs because they had no other option, this could make them very sick. The last thing you want is to have to call the vet because your horse is sick. We’ve gone over some of the illnesses that your horse could get from drinking dirty water in our previous blog post: 7 Common Livestock Illnesses From Dirty Water And What You Can Do.

An automatic horse drinker can help you avoid vet bills by ensuring that your horse always has access to fresh, clean water. Since the water drains back down to your water line when your horse is done drinking, there’s no standing water that you need to worry about getting dirty or contaminated in some way. 

With an automatic horse drinker, you can rest easy knowing that your horse has good, clean water within easy access whenever they need it. 

Time And Effort

You know the age-old saying: “Time is money”. If you’re lugging water buckets or standing by your horse’s through with a hose, waiting for it to fill up, this is all time that you could spend doing other things if you had a horse drinker installed. 

Plus, when you have a horse drinker, you don’t need to worry about checking on your horse’s water routinely. You should still check on the horse drinkers, of course, in order to ensure that they’re functioning properly and to address any issues that may come up. However, you won’t have to worry about contaminated water or refilling water buckets the same way you would if you didn’t have an automatic horse drinker.

How Much Money Can You Save With An Automatic Horse Drinker?

There’s no singular answer to this question, as there are many factors that involve how much money you’re currently spending versus how much you could save by having an automatic horse drinker installed. Where you live, the size of your property, how many animals you have, all of these, and more impact your expenses.

One thing is for certain though: an automatic horse drinker can help you to save money, from all of the above factors. 

If you’re considering purchasing an automatic horse drinker to help save money, Bar Bar A is here to help. Contact us with any questions that you may have, and let us help you keep your horses hydrated all year round. 

Animals can drink dirtier water than humans and remain healthy much of the time, but not always. Just like in humans, dirty water can result in a number of different common livestock illnesses. Your animals need access to fresh, clean water in order to stay healthy and hydrated all year round. Here is what you need to know about dirty water and your livestock so that you can help your animals thrive.

Why Can Animals Drink Dirtier Water Than Humans?

In the wild, and in pastures and turnouts, animals drink from all sorts of seemingly unsanitary water sources, such as ponds, rivers, puddles, and more. Since humans typically need to purify their water before they drink it, how is it that livestock can drink this water without getting sick?

The truth is that sometimes, animals can get sick from drinking this type of water. However, this generally only happens when the water has bacteria or feces in it. In general, animals in the wild drink from water sources that have dirt, minerals, and organisms that don’t cause disease in them. Since these are their primary water sources, they tend to build up an immunity to these organisms.

This is not always the case, though. Large amounts of animals using the same water sources can result in the spread of disease at a significant scale. This is due to pathogens that can appear in water that has been contaminated with discharge, feces, urine, and tissues, leading to many different water-borne diseases.

All animals need access to safe water sources in order to ensure that their nutritional needs are met and so that they can avoid disease.

What Happens When Livestock Drink Dirty Water?

All sorts of bad things! Animals can drink anywhere from 5-30 gallons of water in a day. If the water is dirty, this can cause them to get sick, impact their growth and reproductive abilities, and lead to production and health problems that can spread. 

Some of the issues that can result from dirty water sources are as follows:

Dehydration

Many animals will refuse to drink water that they know is bad for them unless they are truly desperate. This can lead to dehydration. Some common symptoms of dehydration include: sunken eyes, dark urine, the skin “tenting” after you pinch it, and fever. 

Heat Stress

This goes along with dehydration. Especially during the hot summer months or after an intense workout, animals need to drink. Water can help reduce the impacts of heat stress on your animals. If the water is dirty, it is more challenging to help your animals cool down. 

Leptospirosis

This is a type of disease that can cause significant reproductive losses in livestock. It is caused by the Leptospira bacteria, which can be found in the urine of wild animals. This spinal-shaped organism thrives in standing water. If your livestock is infected with it, they can develop a fever and may experience liver or kidney failure. This can also be transmitted from animals to humans.

Pythiosis

This is another infectious disease that can result from your animals drinking from standing water sources. The organism that causes it, Pythium, is also known as “swamp cancer”. It can impact your animals’ skin and their digestive tracts. This disease usually isn’t diagnosed until it is quite advanced, resulting in a poor prognosis for any infected animals. 

Fusobacterium

Also known as “foot rot”, this is an infection that is carried on the feet of animals and can contaminate any water source that they step into. This can result in chronic lameness. It can easily spread by entering cuts and other injuries on animals’ feet.

Campylobacter

This illness spreads through feces, so if any feces gets into your water source, it can cause fever and severe diarrhea in any animals who drink it. 

Anthrax

This disease can lead to many serious symptoms, from trembling to trouble breathing to convulsions and even death. Anthrax is highly fatal, and has been linked to shared dirty water sources animals use. 

How To Ensure That Your Animals Have Clean, Safe Water

You can help keep your animals healthy and safe by ensuring that they always have access to clean, fresh water with a Bar Bar A non-electric automatic waterer. These connect to your water line, so that the water is always clean. The water does not stand in the waterer when your animals are done drinking, but rather, drains back down, so you do not need to worry about any of the risks associated with standing water. 

Bar Bar A provides automatic waterers for all sorts of animals, from horses to cattle to llamas to wild game and more. Contact us today to learn more about our automatic waterers and let us help you keep your livestock happy and hydrated.

Since the pandemic, a lot of people have been looking to make the switch to living off the land. Even prior to 2020, as we have learned more and more about what goes into our food and the realities of the lives of people who make our clothes and more, people have sought to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle. As such, you may be wondering how to start your own homestead, so that you can enjoy a healthier, simpler life that is more sustainable than one full of fast fashion and heavily processed foods. 

When you start your own homestead, there’s quite a bit of pride in growing your own crops or making your own clothes. Being self-sufficient is very appealing and can save you money in the long-run. However, don’t let the cottagecore aesthetic fool you – when you start your own homestead, you must be prepared for a lot of work. 

Starting a homestead can feel overwhelming. There’s so much to consider, so much to do. It’s definitely not something that happens overnight. There’s no one way to start your own homestead, because depending on your circumstances, your goals, and more, what works for you can be different from what works for someone else. However, we’ve compiled a list of some tips that can help you on your journey to a more self-sufficient life. Here are some of our top tips for how to start your own homestead.

#1. Determine How Self-Sufficient You Want To Be

When you start your own homestead, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to buy hundreds of acres of land and a farmhouse in a remote location. Many people are able to homestead in the suburbs, and even have some homesteading practices they can keep up in a city apartment. Thus, before you start your own homestead, you want to determine what that means to you.

Do you want to just grow your own vegetables? This is something that can be done in pots in apartments or gardens in houses. Do you want to raise animals? Depending on the laws and ordinances in your area, you may be able to have some animals like chickens in your backyard, or you may need to move somewhere with more land.

Figure out your goals, and remember that homesteading takes time. It’s a step away from the fast-paced city life, and requires both work and patience to yield results of any sort. Remember too that your goals can change, and that that’s okay! Homesteading can be very addictive. People often find themselves going from gardening to maintaining crops, multiple different types of animals, and more. Know that if your goals change, you can move, purchase some more land, or do something else in order to reach them.

#2. Start Small

It can be very tempting to jump all in when you start your own homestead. This can work very well for some people, especially if you’re already experienced at living off the land and caring for animals. However, for beginner homesteaders, this could be a massive mistake and cause you to get overwhelmed very quickly. Sure, planting all these different crops and having a milk cow and chickens and the like could be the dream. But if you’re new to this life, it’s best to take it one step at a time.

Start off with a few different crops in a garden space so that you can learn how to maintain a garden. Learn how to care for animals and ensure that they will have a comfortable life and that you can provide for them before you get them. Community gardens and the like are excellent for learning homesteading skills and for helping you make connections. YouTube videos and local classes can help you learn rural skills needed for homesteading, such as how to preserve your food, how to mend clothes, how to make candles, and more.

The more you learn, the more you can expand and try new things. Homesteaders are used to taking things slow and introducing only one or two new things at a time, to ensure that they can do them properly. There’s no need to rush when you start your own homestead. There’s always room for even the most experienced people to grow and learn.

#3. Make A Budget/Get Out Of Debt

In order to live a truly self-sufficient lifestyle, it’s best to avoid debt as much as possible. Homesteaders are familiar with being frugal and saving up for things rather than getting trapped in the modern-day debt cycle. Learning how to live within your means and paying off your debts will go a long way to help you live a self-sufficient life. Since debts can sometimes be unavoidable, it’s important to budget and come up with a plan for how to pay them off sooner rather than later. 

Homesteaders are often very friendly people who are willing to share. This can help you cut costs. For instance, you can ask to borrow some of your fellow homesteaders’ equipment in exchange for some work or some goods. That way, you don’t need to spend all this money on something you only need once. Remember to share your own things, too. For instance, if you have a dehydrator, you can lend it to a fellow homesteader in their canning ventures. 

You can also find a way to make an income while homesteading, such as by selling produce at your local farmers’ market. Many homesteaders still need a job in addition to homesteading, so finding a way to make money on your ventures can help with living expenses. You should also have savings in the event of an emergency. 

#4. Simplify Your Life

If you’re looking to start your own homestead, you’re probably aware that this goes hand-in-hand with living a simpler lifestyle. Rather than constantly buying new clothes you only wear a handful of times or seeking out the latest phone or other money-sucks, homesteaders often abide by the philosophy that less is more. Often, homesteading itself can cause you to simplify your life, because you’re focusing your time and attention on maintaining your homestead rather than chasing the latest trends. 

One natural way that homesteaders simplify their lives is by eating according to the season and eating what they themselves have grown, rather than eating out all the time. Homesteading can save you money, but it can do this even moreso if you’re already making the transition to a simpler, more frugal lifestyle that helps you stay out of debts. 

#5. Find Your Community

Community is everything for homesteaders. It’s much less overwhelming to start your own homestead if you have a community to lean on and to turn to for any questions or concerns. Someone else may know exactly what to do if you’re struggling with your chickens or if you’re trying to find an easier way to keep your animals hydrated. 

Even the most introverted people need human connection from time to time, so having a community can help both on your homesteading journey and with feeling validated. Some people may think that you’re crazy for wanting to start your own homestead, and it can be exhausting constantly trying to justify yourself. Homesteaders are often happy to support each other, and it can be so validating to know that you have a community of people on a similar journey to you when you start your own homestead.

#6. Ensure That You Care For Animals Properly

There’s nothing like going out to the chicken coup and fetching some fresh eggs for breakfast in the morning or making your own cheese from your cow’s milk. However, if you want to have animals on your homestead, it’s crucial that you take care of them properly. When you start your own homestead, remember that animals need space to move around, they need proper nutrition, they need easy access to water, and you need to ensure that they receive veterinary care as needed. If you cannot provide your animals with what they need in order to live a comfortable, healthy life, you should not have animals.

It can be challenging to keep your animals hydrated, especially if you live somewhere where it can get really cold. Rather than trekking out to the animals multiple times a day to break the ice over their water, you can install an automatic waterer that allows them to access fresh, clean water whenever they need. That way, you can rest assured that your animals can stay healthy and hydrated all year round.

Bar Bar A provides multiple different types of non-electric automatic waterers for horses, cattle, and more. Our automatic waterers can help you on your journey to start your own homestead by ensuring that your animals always have access to fresh, clean water. Here, you can see a video of one of our customers installing our waterers so that you can see what the process is like: The Amazing ELECTRIC FREE FROST PROOF Automatic Livestock Waterer!

There’s a lot to consider when you start your own homestead, but by taking it slow and really familiarizing yourself with the process and finding your community, you can enjoy a more self-sufficient lifestyle. If you would like to learn more about the Bar Bar A automatic waterers for your homestead, please don’t hesitate to contact us today!